Tuesday, 15 March 2016

THIS YEAR 2016, marks the 50th anniversary of the making of ISLAND OF TERROR starring Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Eddie Byrne Niall MacGinnis and Sam Kidd. A great cast, but the true stars are the things that crawl, slurp and suck their merry way through the very entertaining 89 minutes. They are called SILICATES and are it must be said, they are one of the more original looking 'monsters' to ever come 'down the pike' in a 1960's UK Sci-Fi movie. Looking like a cross between a lump of porridge with a vacuum cleaner attachment, it's amusing at first, until you see WHAT these slip-sliding blobs can do!

The GIFS in this feature are not taken from the REMASTERED FOOTAGE SCREENBOUND dvd or

In the past two years we've worked with SCREENBOUND to bring you some great competitions, and now we have a great offer for all PCAS followers and friends! For a LIMITED PERIOD ONLY with the help of a DISCOUNT CODE, you can ORDER YOUR DVD or BLU RAY copy of 'ISLAND OF TERROR' with a huge saving of 50% off!

This offer is only valid until SUNDAY MARCH 20th 2016

SO GET MOVING!!

ITS EASYto place your order and receive your 50% DISCOUNT! Simply CLICK HEREwhich will take you to CLASSICFILMSDIRECT.COM and the ORDER PAGE. Make your choice, for either the DVD or BLU RAY of 'ISLAND OF TERROR' then CLICK, ADD TO BASKET, and TYPE IN THE DISCOUNT CODE 'terror50' and make your chosen method of payment. SIMPLE AS THAT!

NOW.. Just wait for the postman! But, if anything else turns up on your doorstep, like BELOW??? RUN FOR IT!!

We'd like to thank the team at SCREENBOUND for making this great offer available to our followers and friends!

Plot: Police lieutenant William Kinderman is faced with a baffling series of murders in which each victim has been decapitated and their head replaced with the head from a marble statue of Christ. The killings emulate in every detail the m.o. of the Gemini Killer who was sent to the electric chair fifteen years ago. In investigating, Kinderman discovers his old friend Father Karras being held in a psychiatric ward. Kinderman realises that Karras is tormented and tortured by The Devil who keeps the spirit of the Gemini Killer alive inside him and forces Karras to watch as his own body is used to kill innocents.

To say that one preferred The Exorcist III to the original The Exorcist (1973) is probably to commit critical hara kari. The trouble with the original was that when the sensationalism was pared away, it was only a fairly hokey and in many ways crude barnstormer. The Exorcist III is written-directed by William Peter Blatty who wrote the original novel version The Exorcist (1971) and then produced and wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. Basing the film on his original novel sequel Legion (1983), Blatty abandons gross-out tactics altogether and plays the script as a theological detective story – one where the puzzle is solved by Kinderman’s finding faith. As a result, The Exorcist III emerges as a far better reworking of essentially the same story as The Exorcist – Kinderman’s finding of faith comes with far more emphasis and delineation of character compared to the same journey undergone by Ellen Burstyn in the original.

In a decade that has almost entirely inured one to the power of a good scare, William Peter Blatty, in what most cynically predicted would only be another Roman numeral exploitation film, comes in an outside winner, conjuring a series of wild, outlandish theatre-rattling jolts. The dream sequence with George C. Scott moving through Heaven, which is presented as a Grand Central Station of sorts where the dead try to contact the living by radio, to find Ed Flanders with his head stitched on who turns to look at Scott and say “I’m not dreaming,” holds a strong kick. Or the moment where George C. Scott enters the vege ward and the camera pans upwards to show one of the patients scuttling about on the ceiling. However, the scene that makes the entire audience jump is the one that follows a night-duty nurse around the ward as she checks on strange noises she hears. Mostly shot in a single wide-angle down the shaded ward corridor, one is startled out of their seats as she emerges from the room she has just checked, followed in complete silence by an alabaster-white winged figure. The camera suddenly slams into a medium angle up on the figure, revealing it to be one of the headless statues come to life. It is a genuine scare that has a truly fantastique wildness to it, no matter how silly it may seem when one thinks about it afterwards.

This was one of the choicest roles George C. Scott had had in a while. William Peter Blatty equips him with a daft sense of humour, which lights up Scott’s rigid Mt Rushmore face in the delivery. Brad Dourif gives a performance that is regrettably playing to the audience. However, Dourif is probably more in control of a role than he has ever seemed before (funny that he has to spend the entire film in a strait-jacket to do so – his only other good performance was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and there he was confined to an asylum too). Blatty conjures a considerable chill out from the character’s dialogue, describing the joys of killing people and in keeping Karras trapped in his own body, watching as it is made to kill innocents

It is ironic that the film’s only failing comes in trying to emulate the current crop of effects-heavy clones. The studio forced a new ending on the film after deciding the one that William Peter Blatty originally shot was too tame. However, it is a surprisingly wimpy display of effects and conversely only ends the film on an anti-climax. The new character of Father Morning, played by Nicol Williamson, added here is poorly developed and unnecessary. Among other things, the studio insisted on a return appearanceE of a character from The Exorcist, which is why Brad Dourif’s scenes are broken up by appearances of Jason Miller, which were added later. The studio also insisted on naming the film The Exorcist III, as opposed to William Peter Blatty’s preferred title of Legion (1983). Blatty has announced a desire to release a director’s cut of the film, his original version, which is substantially different to the one released by Morgan Creek, but apparently the studio has announced that all of this original footage is lost.

Editors Note - Since this review was written it has been strongly rumoured that the lost footage has been found, and Blatty's has gone to the USA to edit to together his orginal cut to come out on blu-ray. Fingers crossed it will come to fruition

Thursday, 3 March 2016

After 'The Twilight Zone had ended on CBS, Rod Serling tried to sell it to another network but was unable to due to CBS retaining the rites to the series. So he went to another network and pitched an idea for a show called 'Rod Serling Wax Works' however that idea was rejected , Serling then tweaked the concept and set it in an art gallery instead and 'Night Gallery' was born.

What might have been? Rod Serling on set while shooting The Twlight Zone episode 'The New Exhibit'

While 'The Twlight Zone' was primarilyascience fiction show with horror overtones, Night Gallery focused mainly on horror and the supernatural.Each episode of the series opened with Serling in a darkened art gallery, he then introduced each story by revaling the paintings that depicted them.For the first two season the epsidoes where 50 minutes in length and containted multiple self contained stories varying in length, while in season three the episodes where cut down to 25 minutes and mostly containted just a single story. While Serling wrote the majortiy of the scripts some where adapted from authors such as HP Lovecraft.

Rod Serling's opening monologe from the pilot of Night Gallery

The pilot for Night Gallery aired 8th November 1969 of NBC and consisted of 3 stories all written by Serling, the first one 'The Cemetery' starring Roddy McDowall and Ossie Davis in which Jeremy Evans (McDowall) murders his rich uncle in order to get his hands on the inheritance, much to the disgust of his uncle's butler Portifoy (Davis) but find finds he might not get away with it so easy after all.

The second story 'Eyes' (which marked the directing debut of Steven Spielberg) stars hollywood legend Joan Crawford (in one of her last acting roles), as Claudia Menlo, a rich selfish woman who has been blind since birth, who blackmails her surgen friend into performing an operation that will allow her to see for a short time, however it backfires on her in a bizarre twist of fate….

The final story 'The Escape Route' stars Richard Kelly and Sam Jaffe. A war criminal (Kelly) has fled and his hiding from the authorities under an alternate name, one day his past comes back to haunt him as a old man (Jaffe) recognises him and starts to ask questions, so he finds solace in a tranquil painting in a local art galley and longs to enter that world, however he should be careful what he wishes for……..

Night Galley ran for three seasons after the pilot and a lot of famous actors guest starred such as Burgess Meredith, Leslie Nelson, Vicnent Price, Angnes Moorehead, Leonard Nimoy, Ray Milland, Sally Field and many more, and while it never achived the same level of susscess as The Twlight Zone (perhaps in part due to the fact Serling did not have as much creatvite control over the series as he did with The Twlight Zone) it still remains one of the best TV horror antholgy series of the 70's and well worth checking out.

Just some of the famous actors that guest starred on 'Night Gallery' Vincent Price, Anges Moorehead, Sally Field and Burgess Meredith

I am very excited to let you see an EXCLUSIVE 'first peep' short promo on all our PCAS internet platforms today, for Donald Fearney's next documentary. A documentary that, both Fearney and editor Jim Groom are working on and is in production right now! If you have had the opportunity to see Donald's Amicus : Vault of Horror Definitive history documentary dvd, you'll know that this Cushing / Hammer / Frankenstein documentary has the potential to be something very special indeed!

We can't wait for the complete documentary to be released. Donald has promised us updates and scoops on the progress of the production, and no doubt we will be launching a promotion competition too, when the time comes. Meanwhile, sit back and watch the trailer that John Hough, director of Twins of Evil recently watched and said, 'Tremendous! I want to see the whole thing now!!' ...And so do we John, sooo do we!

FOLLOW THE PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY AT THE WEBSITE OR THEIR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE: PCASUK OPEN TO EVERYONE! PROMO TRAILER BELOW

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

This year the PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY enters it's 60th year. Founded by Gladys Fletcher in 1956 for Peter Cushing fans in the UK, it's presence on the internet and now at several social media sites, now makes it a truly international platform for fans and admirers, of the life and career of the late Peter Cushing. Updated daily with rare photographs, features, prize competitions, news and galleries. Regularly working with leading publications in providing visual materials, validating memorabilia and collectables at auction houses and assisting distributors like Warner Brothers and Hammer films, to give you the best prizes and the fastest news on any dvd and blu ray releases that feature the work of Peter Cushing.

Please watch our trailer, it's also available at our youtube site. If you can, share it and help make 2016, our best year ever! - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/trailer-appreciation-society-enters-its.html#sthash.ifD4W9Vk.dpuf

Limited Edition Lobby Cards for the promotion of the release of Hammer films, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell Blu Ray....also incorporating our PCAS

Competition and exclusive interview with Shane Briant!

The Horror Channel has also supported our Peter Cushing promotions in conjunction with the planned releases of a Peter Cushing dvds or blu releases.

We are very proud of our relationship with dvd and blu ray distributors, major and limited releases. Warner Brothers chose the Peter Cushing Appreciation Society as one of only three outlets to sponsor with exclusive copies of their very successful recent release of HORROR CLASSIC, as prizes in our PCAS competition!

Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Sad news to report British character actor Anthony Valentine has passed
away… Best known for his the ruthless Toby Meres in Callan, the sinister
Major Mohn in Colditz, and the title character in Raffles…. He also
starred in the Hammer films The Dammed (1963), To The Devil A Daughter
(1976) and the Hammer House Of Horror episode Carpathian Eagle

Tuesday, 1 December 2015

It seems that hardly a week goes by now, without some distributor releasing a 'remastered, special edition, uncut, limited edition, cleaned up, all singing and dancing' blu ray from the Hammer or Amicus film vaults. To be fair, most of these releases do come up with the goods, and many of the films now presented minus scratches, dust with censor snipped footage now 'slipped back in', do pass mustard. We'll leave the 'experts' to pick and chew over ratio discrepancies among themselves. Having said that, however good the main attraction feature is presented, quite a few releases fall at the fence on the strength of what was once, just a little extra, a good will gesture, thrown in to complete the package... a dusty stills gallery, a few yellowing pages from a press book, some vintage cinema posters or if you are really lucky all three. But, over the past few years, the target audience has become more than a little sophisticated and knows exactly what it wants and expects. Has some distributors have found to their cost, the success of a new release can fly or fall based on the strength of their EXTRAS.

Today, nothing less than a 40 minute documentary, including rare stills, behind the scenes footage and interviews will do. Twenty five minutes of 'talking heads', including 'a celebrity' or two..... neither of which appeared in the feature attraction, but do happen to have an opinion about it, doesn't really impress. And why should it? Not when there IS a veritable treasure of material out there to be used, if you know where to find it and how to incorporate it into an extras documentary.

In the field of 'extras features' to be found on blu rays over the past few years there are one or two familiar producers, authorities, names and faces that spring up with alarming regularity. What you probably don't know, is the one name, that for many, wouldn't even summon the faintest tinkle of a bell... and yet, for almost ten years he has produced an unfailing record of documentaries and extra features, that sometimes threaten to even over shadow the feature product itself!

It's common practice now in the pre release promotion for many fantasy genre releases, for distributors to promise the earth...and more! Photo galleries, rare behind the scenes footage, rare interviews with the actual cast and crew...and photographs. RARE ones. Many, Many RARE ones. Sadly, what we get is a twenty minute tedious rip off of talking heads, of people who may be critics, fans, authors or academics who might KNOW the subject matter very well, and once may have met Terence Fisher in a pub thirty years ago, along with five black and white press photographs, panned and edited in the style of Ken Burns, that appeared donkey's years ago in Famous Monsters and have been doing the rounds ever since, in every publication from the Radio Times to a dodgy mag, that thinks the way to a fans heart and wallet is by printing suspect pics of Hammer film starlets, long before they were stars, self consciously flashing their bits and tits, crouch fluff and often more.... tacky.

For quite sometime now this person, has produced an outstanding series of documentaries and extras for blu rays and dvd releases, and yet has remained quite happily for most people, under the radar. Unlike many, he doesn't crave the spot light himself, never appears in his documentaries, never visits or comments on forums and would never even consider doing an interview, believing his work speaks for itself.

For a small tight crowd of Hammer film fans in the UK, the name Donald Fearney was first connected with a series of very unique garden parties with actors and technicians from the film world. That may not sound anything particularly exciting or special, until you consider that the 'garden party' was held at the home of Hammer films 'Bray Studios'.... and the actors and technicians, some 60 to 80 in total, were the cream of British Fantasy Cinema from the Hammer and Amicus hey-days. Fearney hosted this event not once, but three times! Invitation by ticket only, fans could walk at their leisure around Down Place, take in the atmosphere, while chatting to Veronica Carlson, Ingrid Pitt, Val Guest, Don Taylor, Michael Ripper, Jimmy Sangster, Hazel Court, the Collinson twins, Hammer producer Roy Skeggs, Hammer films producer Anthony Hinds, Yvonne Monlaur, Carol Marsh and a host of others. Autographs...were free. This of course, was before the explosions of signing events that are all too common these days. But, they were something very special and never to be repeated.

If you purchased Final Cut's blu ray release of 'The Brides of Dracula', 'Captain Clegg/ Night Creatures', 'The Phantom of the Opera' or 'The Evil of Frankenstein'... you would have seen Donald's work. All extra content was produced by Don , with help from editor, Jim Groom. It's all of a very high standard. Don says his job is to 'tell the story'. From page to screen, how the film in your hands was produced, with help from narrators like Hammer actor, Edward de Souza and John Carson. The first thing that strikes you about Fearney's documentaries is the sheer volume of content he brings to the screen. It's quite staggering and I have yet to view any extras documentary, that matches his photo count, and the staggering total of vintage photographs he freely shares with the viewer to 'tell the story'.

Which bring me to Donald's latest release. This one is a stand alone feature. It was recently a boast, from a company promising the earth in the shape of their forth coming documentary, that in so many words...'for the first time in our documentary we'll be telling the behind the scenes story of these Hammer Dracula films.....' I guess they missed the 90 minute Fearney documentary entitled 'The Legend of Hammer Vampires', released in 2009 and features exclusive interviews with, Jimmy Sangster, Tudor Gates, John Forbes Robertson, Dave Prowse, Caroline Munro and John Cater who until that time, had never appeared before a camera to tell their story. Produced for a very modest £2,000 ...read that again, that's £2,000...it's a tight, info packed professionally produced feature, that wont have you reaching for the fast forward or skip button and again the content I have never seen bettered, at least that was until last week...

Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg's Amicus Vault Of Horrors, tells the full story..warts and all of the legendary partnership of Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg and the production company, Amicus films, who along with Hammer films dominated the horror / fantasy genre in cinemas during the 1960's and 70's. The Amicus reputation is probably more based on their series of portmanteau films such as, Dr Terror's House of Horrors, Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror and it would have been an easier job for Fearney, in telling the Amicus story, had he just trod this well worn path. The fact that this documentary covers not only ALL 'Horror' Amicus output, but also their less successful ventures like ' The Mind of Mr. Soames', 'What Became of Jack and Jill?' and 'A Touch of Love'. This does not detract or make for boring viewing, quite the opposite. Fearney has left no stones unturned in finding material and 'the story behind the story' in the production of these films. The addition of the narration delivered by the fruity and rich tones of none other than Roy Hudd, is a real plus. Hudd's career as a performer, comedian and highly respected authority on the history of entertainment in the UK, makes him the perfect choice, for the colourful tale of Amicus and cinematic stories that often held a black cruel twist.

Amicus Vault of Horrors, begins with a very clever homage to Dr Terror's House of Horrors, that continues through out the documentary, using the turning of Dr Terror's Tarot Cards, as a cunning visual device in telling the story of the Amicus fortunes... and fate. One very interesting plus in the documentary is the footage of a never before seen interview with Milton Subotsky, this interview comes from our very own Peter Cushing Appreciation Society archives. A lot has been written about Subotsky down the years, much of it second and third hand, this is the first and only time, where he gets the opportunity to share his side of the story, and who better to help him do that, than Donald Fearey.Written by Marcus BrooksMilton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg's : Amicus Vault of Horrors DVD is a region 0 release and is available for purchase for £20.00 which includes post and package anywhere through the following paypal address: PEVANS113@BTINTERNET.COM

Dr Charles Decker returns after having
been missing for a year following a plane crash in Uganda. He has
discovered a serum among the natives. Using Konga, a chimpanzee he has
brought back with him, he determines to perfect his theories regarding
the links between plant life and human tissue and the belief that plants
can be commanded by human will. He injects Konga with the serum, which
causes it to increase to the size of gorilla. He then uses Konga to go
out and kill rivals and those who impede his research.

Konga
is one of the films from producer Herman Cohen. Cohen had had some
success with a host of teen revisions of classic horror monster movie
themes in the late 1950s, beginning with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and including the likes of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and Blood of Dracula (1957). (There is no truth to the rumour that persistently circulates that Konga was originally to have been titled I Was a Teenage Gorilla). From 1959 onwards, Herman Cohen relocated in England and produced another series of horror films there, beginning with Horrors of the Black Museum (1959).

The lynchpin of Herman Cohen’s English
films was Michael Gough. Michael Gough had great success, delivering a
wonderfully cruel and demented performance as the killer crime writer in
Black Museum. Cohen again casts Michael Gough here and also would in The Black Zoo (1963) and Berserk (1967), all of which headlined Gough as a demented killer.

Konga
is a thoroughly schlocky film. There is some wonderfully overwrought
nonsense about witch doctors making plants subservient to their wills
and scenes of Michael Gough walking through the conservatory throwing
meat to his carnivorous plants. Gough fires the film up with a
wonderfully arrogant performance. However, the rest of Konga
is routine hackwork and it is only Michael Gough’s presence that
enlivens it in any way. The ape suit is incredibly shabby – somehow in
being enlarged from normal to human-size the ape manages to go from
being a chimp into a gorilla. The terrible optically enlarged scenes
with the chimpanzee rampaging have justly accorded Konga a Golden Turkey status.

Herman Cohen’s other genre films include:- Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), Target Earth (1954), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), Blood of Dracula (1957), How to Make a Monster (1958), The Headless Ghost (1959), Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), The Black Zoo (1963), A Study in Terror (1965), Berserk (1967), Trog (1970) and Craze (1973).

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